Cover of the book Gay by the Bay
Gay by the Bay was published by Chronicle Books in April 1996
to coincide with the opening of the Gay and Lesbian Center. It began
in response
to Susan Stryker's question of what the Gay and Lesbian Center
was planning as an
inaugural exhibit (influenced by the New York Public Library's
1995 pioneering Becoming Visible exhibit). Jim Van Buskirk, Program
Manager of the Gay and Lesbian Center,
confessed he had not yet considered it. The two of them sat down
to plan an exhibit, but immediately realized that given the amount
of work expended
on an exhibit, the research should be documented. At that point,
the project changed from an exhibition catalog to a stand-alone
book. The authors were
surprised to realize that there had never before been a book-length
chronicle of San Francisco as "gay mecca." Though the book is
admittedly not comprehensive,
the authors feel that they "have taken an important step toward
telling the exciting story of what lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered
people, and
gay men in the Bay Area have accomplished." The design of the
book, with its extensive marginalia and nearly 300 color and
black-and-white photographs of historical memorabilia including
correspondence, posters, buttons, matchbook covers, and other
artifacts culled
from the Gay and Lesbian Center of the San Francisco Public Library,
the Gay and
Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California, and other
archives,
both public and private -- reflects its original conception.
With a heartfelt introduction by Armistead Maupin, Gay by the
Bay:
A History
of Queer Culture
in the San Francisco Bay Area, is for future historians "a tempting
invitation to uncover more of the rich history of queer people
in the San Francisco
Bay Area."
Susan Stryker is a Bay Area writer, activist and scholar.
She has been a visiting faculty member in the Women's Studies department
at University
of California at Berkeley and a founding member of the Harvey Milk
Institute. She is Executive Director of the GLBT Historical Society.
Jim Van Buskirk is Program Manager of the James C. Hormel Gay and
Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library. His writing
has appeared in a variety of books, periodicals, websites, and
radio broadcasts.
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